The invention relates generally to ultrasound imaging systems, and more particularly, to automatic image optimization in such systems.
The use of ultrasound to produce images for medical diagnosis has become common as a result of its nonionizing nature, the ability to produce images resulting from the inherent differences in mechanical properties of various soft tissues, and advances in technology. Current applications include examination of the heart, abdomen, and fetus. In most areas, diagnosis is now generally based on the size, position, contour, and motion of structures as well as on their relative transmission and reflection properties.
In general, for a typical ultrasound scanner, a user needs to perform multiple operations to obtain optimized images, which is time-consuming and operator dependent. Furthermore, an inexperienced user may generate suboptimal images increasing risk of an incorrect diagnosis.
A common practice is to pre-set imaging parameters for each ultrasound probe and each clinical application. In this case, the scanner will have a good performance on an average patient without user adjustment. However, such an approach does not handle patient dependency, which is critical for ultrasound imaging.
Automatic gain optimization has also been widely implemented in ultrasound scanners. The acquired images are analyzed and local amplitude is adjusted to obtain optimal image brightness, contrast, and uniformity. However, such a technique only addresses a portion of the image optimization issues and does not account for fundamental beamforming parameters, such as, for example, frequency, aperture size, which are also critical to image quality.
Therefore, an improved ultrasound imaging system is desirable to address one or more of the aforementioned issues.